Garritan Personal Orchestra Review

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(More customer reviews)I am surprised that this is the first review for GPO on Amazon, considering the growing following this collection has.
This is one impressive product - a comprehensive list of sounds, that work very well together. Obviously the samples in more expensive packages are more impressive in their basic sound, but if used with skill it is truly astonishing what can be achieved with this set - one has only to listen to the numerous user demos on their web site to see for yourself. The situation here is that the sum is in fact greater than its parts.
In this price range, there really isn't anything that can compare to it. The quality of the results achievable are good enough for professional use, and in fact it is getting considerable professional application in many different areas.
Anyone looking for orchestral sounds, but unwilling (or more likely unable) to the spend the thousands necessary for the big libraries should take a look at what is being offered here.
Really, bravo to the Garritan team for creating such an impressive library at a price point accessible to almost anyone.

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Whether you're a professional film composer who needs to produce orchestral mockups at a moment's notice, a hobbyist who wants to create great sounding orchestral music, or a student who is studying the art and craft of orchestration, Personal Orchestra will simplify creative work at a price that won't break the bank. In the studio, at home or on the road, Personal Orchestra is for every musician.Personal Orchestra contains samples of all the major instruments in a symphony orchestra-strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion-as well as instruments not found in other orchestral libraries-a Steinway® concert grand piano, a Stradivarius violin, Guarneri Violin, Gagliano Violin, Wurlitzer and Venus concert harps, Haynes flutes, Heckel bassoons, a Mustel celeste, a Rudolf von Beckerath concert pipe organ, a harpsichord, and many other exquisite instruments. There is everything one needs to create orchestrations of any size! In fact, as a whole, Personal Orchestra has the most expensive collection and highest caliber of orchestral instruments of any orchestral sample library ever recorded!Build ensembles one instrument at a time from individual solo instruments. This allows the user to construct ensembles or sections of any size - solo instruments, duos, trios, quartets, chamber ensembles, small orchestras, or a full symphonic orchestra.Personal Orchestra allows you to create realistic sounding orchestral music quickly and easily, right "out of the box." No confusin...

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Cakewalk Studio Instruments Review

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(More customer reviews)Cakewalk Studio Instruments are a great foundational set of instruments to add to a persons home digital recording studio. Drums,Bass,Keys,Strings. The salt N pepper that most music requires at a great price and easy function.
I am a confessed Gear-a-holic. I love to find things like the studio instruments kit that don't cost an arm n leg, but that will "Broaden" your color pallet of sound. It's a tool that is fun to use, visually easy to understand and the sound is pleasing. What more could you ask for?


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Can't play bass drums piano or violin? No problem! Just point and click and you are making music. It's that easy!Introducing Cakewalk Studio Instruments the world's first easy-to-use and affordable software instrument collection for Mac and PC. Cakewalk Studio Instruments includes a high quality Drum Kit Bass Guitar Electric Piano and String Section that can be played stand alone or inside your favorite music-making software such as Cakewalk Music Creator Apple GarageBand Magix Music Maker Deluxe SONY ACID Music Studio and more (see list below for complete list of compatible products).Cakewalk Studio Instruments include pre-recorded patterns played by ace session musicians so you can build sections for your songs practice or just have fun jamming along.And Studio Instruments sound great because they're from Cakewalk makers of the most popular music creation software in the world used daily by Grammy® winning musicians and producers. Start making music today with Cakewalk Studio Instruments!Format: WIN XPVISTA/MAC 10.4 OR LATERUB Genre:PRODUCTIVITY UPC:787537171044 Manufacturer No:10-CWSI1.00-10C

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EarMaster 5 Review

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(More customer reviews)I love this software. I'm a pretty crappy guitarist who decided to go back to the basics and learn some music theory (which I'm doing via the "absolutely understand guitar" DVD set by Scotty West -- I recommend that product as well -- the presenter has a tendency to ramble and excessively repeat himself but ultimately the material is solid and a lot of things are starting to click so it was worth hanging in there). Anyway, this software is a perfect complement to your music theory studies. I think that unless you're just lucky to be born with a natural talent, you're going to need some dictation of intervals, chords, scales, and rhythm to atune your ear to how they sound. Playing it on your own instrument isn't as effective because you can't help using your eyes and fingers as a crutch. With this software, you have nothing but your ears to find the answer.
Some small nits to pick, which I'm writing here hoping that emedia will read this and include in its next upgrade: (1) the sounds are pretty crappy and hardly like the instruments they're supposed to represent. I'd rather get a choice of three instruments (say, piano, violin and steel string acoustic guitar) that sound realistic than 60+ crappy MIDI ones. (2) I wish an exercise were included that helps you train absolute pitch. For this, I think the Deburgh method is good. It starts by playing two notes (Eb and F#) and you have to listen in to the character of each and once you can distinguish them you progress to other/additional notes. (3) Another thing that I would find extremely useful is if the scale identification (which is what I'm working on now) could be expanded beyond ascending/descending. My hunch is that a program could be written to pick out notes from a scale in a sequence that still sounds relatively musical (following some musical rules). Or alternatively, plenty of examples (a couple of hundred, so you can't rely on memory) could be stored of existing music pieces in those scales. Ultimately, I would like to be able to hear something on the radio and be able to pick up by the character of the music that it's in this or that scale/mode (even if I can't tell the pitch) and the included exercise (just ascending/descending) is a bit too easy.

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If you want to sing, improvise or jam with complete confidence, you need to recognize all the sounds around you. Ear training can make this possible. Making music with others will become easy and fun! EarMaster is your personal teacher. It is easy to use and provides instant feedback. EarMaster includes a Standard Tutor with over 400 lessons as well as a Jazz Tutor with over 200 lessons. Both will guide you and automatically increase in difficulty as your ear improves. Create your own customized exercises to improve the way you play, compose and notate any style of music!

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